


vacant apartment vacant city vacant state vacant country

by parsniffs



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Bitterness, Depression, F/F, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, I'm Bad At Tagging, Neglect, SIGN SEAL DELIVER SIGN SEAL DELIVER, Sad, Sad Ending, Unrequited Love, constant repetition, depressed yoosung, master-chef Seven, unhappy mc, very SASSY mc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-03 03:21:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8694406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parsniffs/pseuds/parsniffs
Summary: Why is she ignoring them?No, she's just busy.Right?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Heteronomy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8043346) by [yaboi_deicide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaboi_deicide/pseuds/yaboi_deicide). 



> MC's name is Nov, short for Novel (lmao... so clever...), and uses she/her pronouns. 
> 
> "that's a pretty sad story" YeAh well I am not happy that I had to restart my entire route and suffer through the same chats again for the 11th time because of my laziness
> 
> edit: fixing some typos and tagging issues because lmao what??? who proofreads before posting it?? no. just go back and edit it a month later

Their ray of sunshine, they used to call her. The wind that carried change. They all knew that from the day they had met her, Novel was someone special, someone unlike anyone else to join the RFA. They could see it in the way she typed her responses, how she reacted to everyone. How willingly she had accepted their work and joined the organization. Her laugh spread like wildfire, filling them all up with warmth and tugging a smile upon their cheeks.

And she had been there. For a long time, she had been there with them. Nov showed up to almost every conversation, willing to jump in and add her jokes to Seven’s, sympathize with Jaehee, talk about cats with Jumin. She defended Yoosung and flatter Zen’s ego, something most other members never bothered to do. She had been there for all of them, but of course, it was natural for her to lean towards one.

The first day she was gone, RFA hadn’t noticed. She had been there in the morning, eagerly replying to every text, answering every call, joining the chat room whenever they were all on as she always had. By lunchtime her replies slowed and she skipped out on a couple of chats.

She only picked up calls from Jumin and Jaehee, though the entire organization kept her pocket buzzing. Even then, when she answered, their conversations were painfully stilted and short, Nov sometimes hanging up in the middle without saying goodbye.

“She’s just under a lot of pressure,” Jaehee tried to reason.

“Of course she is,” Jumin would say every time.

“Of course she is,” the rest of the chat would echo back.

_ Of course she is. _

Everyone told themselves not to worry. But when has that ever worked very well?

By the second day, Yoosung began to blame himself. Maybe she stopped coming to the chatroom every time she saw he was there because he talked about Rika too much, or he talked about LOLOL too much, or he let Seven mess around with him too much, or he whined too much, or he put too much pressure on her to host a good party in place of Rika.

Where he had once turned to look for warmth and comfort, Yoosung now restrained himself from entering the chats. He didn’t want to drive Nov away, to deprive everyone else of their favourite sunshine just because him and his babyish self was there. Because  _ everything  _ was his fault, wasn’t it?

It had started raining more often the past few weeks. He blamed himself for that, for annoying Nov and taking the sunshine away. For welcoming the clouds. His mood had been unnecessarily sour in the few days before Nov stopped talking. Had he dampened her attitude?

Yoosung felt like he was blind in the darkness without a light. Rika had left this world, taking her shining laughter with her. Was Nov gone too?

“Is she really your only reason to be happy?” Seven had asked him in the chat.

Well, there was LOLOL. And his friends at school and the people he’d met in an online gaming guild. And the rest of the RFA. And Honey Buddha Chips. But they didn’t glow through the blackness of an empty void as powerfully as Nov or Rika had. She was the RFA’s sunshine. She wasn’t even just  _ his  _ sunshine. Nov had brought happiness to the whole organization.

“Of course she is,” Yoosung sent.

“Of course she is,” the rest of the chat spammed back in defense.

_ Of course she is. _

Jaehee’s smile began to crack not long after Yoosung’s had, however. She hadn’t seen Nov in three days and she was getting worried. Normally Nov would be in the chat every second of every hour, right on time to join the cacophony of the other RFA members’ laughter. Now she could hardly remember what Nov’s voice sounded like.

The receiver hung loosely at Jaehee’s side beeping as she sat in her office chair, her head in her hands. Why wasn’t Nov responding? She used to answer every one of Jaehee’s calls. She pressed the receiver back into the phone port on her desk and turned to her boss.

“Mr. Han, have you called Novel recently?”

“I haven’t.” Jumin looked up from signing checks at his desk in the center of the office. Upon seeing Jaehee’s worried face, he frowned uncomfortably. Employees expressing emotions…? Who had died for this to happen? “Why, has she asked for me?”

“No. I don’t know, she won’t answer any of my calls.” Jaehee sighed and took her glasses off, pressing the palms of her hands into her eyes until the too-bright office was punched out into the darkness and little stars took over her vision.

“What do you think she must be doing?” came very calmly from Jumin’s desk.

“Probably talking to guests…?” Jaehee smiled weakly, lifting her head out of her hands.

Jumin snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “Exactly. Now pick up your tears from the floor and get back to work.”

“Pick up my tears, Mr. Han?”

“It means stop crying.” Jumin tilted his head to the side and examined his assistant, who was listlessly wiping her cheeks. “Anyway, do you remember the new business we discussed earlier?”

Jaehee grimaced. “The cat wine?”

“Yes. Have you done any reports on cats’ preferred type of grape?”

She gritted her teeth. She had had  _ actual  _ work to do for the company, not stupid research that only one person cared about. “I don’t believe cats like grapes, Mr. Han.”

“Have you gotten the research to prove that?” Jumin waited patiently for a reply that never came. Finally, he pushed away from his desk and stood up briskly. “Right, well. It’s almost time to have lunch with my father, isn’t it?”

Jaehee looked down at the schedule taped to the side of her desk and showed her boss a forced smile. “In half an hour, yes.”

“Half an hour?” Jumin repeated, straightening his blazer. He looked outside to the downpour blurring the view from the windows. “I have time to visit my home and see if Elizabeth the 3rd is okay. Her fur always gets matted when the rain is too hard.”

“Do you leave your cat outside?” Jaehee asked, her angered polite smile melting into a concerned frown.

“Absolutely not,” he said as though he was offended Jaehee even thought he would do such a thing to his precious cat. How silly of her. “She is just frightened by the rain hitting the windows and licks herself excessively. It gets her precious white fur matted. I must take care of her. I’ll be back shortly before my meeting with my father.”

With that, Jumin swiftly left the office. Though he had not said it, Jaehee knew that he left behind a pile of work for her to take over while he was out unexcused to see his pet. At least, since her boss wasn’t around anymore, she could let her fake smile slide into a grumbling scowl. What made him think he could leave work any time he wanted? What if Mr. Chairman walked in to see his son gone and only an assistant left?

Grudgingly, Jaehee took the stack of papers shoved to one side off of Mr. Han’s desk and added them to her own ever-growing pile of work. She took the first form off the mound and began filling it out—why didn’t that man ever do his own reports? Jaehee felt like she was suffocating; she was almost physically buried in papers, half of them not even her own work.

As she moved on from form to form swiftly and efficiently, a slow thought came through her mind bumping past all the numbers and names and dates that sped through as she worked from top to bottom on the lines.

_ Nov must be this buried, too.  _ She hadn’t been to the chat in days, busy with what Jumin, Seven, and V always assured everyone was work with the guest lists. For some reason, this made Jaehee smile and pick up her pace. She wasn’t alone in her suffering. As the pile of unfilled forms decreased and the stack of complete ones to be mailed off built up, all her anger quietly dripped away into a serene peace, operating on autopilot.

“Nov’s your reason to keep fighting,” rang through her mind over the constant drone of  _ sign, seal, deliver, sign, seal, deliver.  _

“Of course she is,” muttered Jaehee dazedly. 

“Of course she is,” the rain sang as it scraped branches across the windows.

_ Of course she is. _

It turned out Nov would still answer Jumin’s calls, though very rarely and their conversations lasted less than a minute each time. She would assure him she was okay, everything was fine, she was just buried under work, Yoosung wasn’t whiny, Jaehee wasn’t pestering her, and that she’d be back to talking normally in the chat in a couple of days. Then she would abruptly hang up. Jumin called her very infrequently, only when Jaehee really begged him to. He didn’t enjoy talking to her over the phone if she was just going to slam the call off in his face.

“Novel…?” said Jumin hesitantly. He stood in his office. Jaehee, Zen, and Yoosung all stood around him with wide eyes, making the room uncomfortably cramped. Why did they care so much, anyway? Nov would be back soon enough. Yoosung kept fidgeting with his hands and Zen’s fingers twitched over his pocket, muttering something about “damn smoking regulations in the building.”

“...Yes?” came a timid and, it seemed, slightly annoyed voice from the phone.

“Put it on speaker!” cried Yoosung, lunging forward. Jumin pulled his phone away from the boy’s grasp and held it high above Yoosung’s head. The blond pouted and crossed his arms.

“Jumin? Was that Yoosung?”

“No,” hissed Jumin hastily, turning away from everyone else. “That was a co-worker. I’m at the office right now, calling on what appears to be  _ very urgent matters. _ ”

“Oh?”

What were the very urgent matters again? Jumin could hardly remember; he hardly cared enough. If Nov was busy, why should the RFA bug her? After all, she was buried under  _ their  _ work, preparing  _ their  _ party.

“Ah, right. Novel, listen closely please. There is a bomb in your apartment.” He said it with such grace, refinement, without a single hint of worry in his voice, as though he were informing an esteemed highness that their limousine driver had just arrived.

A heavy silence set in, creeping up on everyone’s shoulders and tightly sucking the breath out of them in wait for her reply.

“Yeah, I know.”

And then she hung up.

“Sh—she’s fine,” said Jaehee, leaning back against her desk for support. Her legs were aching and felt bruised from holding her up all day with the weight of the world over her head. 

“Of course she is,” said Jumin calmly, tossing his phone onto his desk and straightening his blazer.

“Of course she is,” whispered back the rest of the office, their voices quiet and breaking.

_ Of course she is. _

Days went by and it seemed Seven was the only one who hadn’t been affected by the sudden disappearance of the new member who had suddenly appeared one day. Everything about Nov was so sudden; one day she just  _ showed up,  _ one day she just started  _ working for them,  _ one day she just  _ disappeared.  _ She was mysterious, but Seven knew all too well that mysteries got boring quickly.

His life was a mystery to the other RFA members except for V. They knew he had a job that was dangerous and needy and required him to spend entire days and sleepless nights in front of the computer, but they didn’t know much past that. At first everyone kept asking him about his life, his family, his work. Then V told them all to stop prying, and just like that, they did. The novelty of having a mysterious member wore off quickly.

He knew that soon the  _ patience _ would wear off. Everyone would lose their patience with Nov. Jaehee’s forced positivity would melt into grumbling pessimism, Zen’s pretend nonchalance would fade away into incessant worrying, Yoosung’s tiny whimpering would grow into a child’s kicking and screaming. Jumin… Jumin was a robot, though, so he’d probably stay the same. Unless it somehow involved Elizabeth the 3rd. Maybe Nov ran away with the cat in her arms.

Except, she  _ hadn’t  _ run away. She was still in the apartment, doing daily activities. He could see her through the CCTV, walking through the halls with ledgers and folders and books in hand. She  _ did  _ look fairly busy. Seven tried to stay out of her business, since he knew how much trouble it was to have to hide something from nosy people. But he knew, grimly in the back of his mind as he watched her walk back and forth through the halls, casually, calmly, slowly, that soon enough the RFA would lose its patience with her, and she would no longer be allowed in Rika’s apartment.

As the CCTV cameras only caught what happened in the hallway between the bedroom and the kitchen, Seven’s window into Nov’s elusive life was limited. He only saw her around meal times when she left the desk in the bedroom to prepare food in the kitchen. Often times, when Vanderwood was out of his house and Seven was all alone during lunch, he’d wait until he saw Nov enter the hallway to go get his food. It made him feel like he had company as he ate his Honey Buddha Chips.

He glanced at the clock—13:07—and patted his rumbling stomach. Of course, it was silly to wait for Nov, as it wasn’t like they were actually eating together. But he couldn’t deny that part of the reason why he waited to see if Nov would leave her room was to make sure she was still feeding herself. She seemed so swamped with work she might have forgotten, along with coming to the chat room every now and then, to make herself meals.

At 13:13 exactly, Nov emerged from the bedroom and began walking through the hall briskly. She seemed to be in a hurry.

“Woah there, Sonic. I barely have time to open my chips,” chuckled Seven as he leaned over his desk and reached past his monitor to the box of chips on the shelf behind.

Today, however, Vanderwood was  _ not  _ out of his house and in fact, was sitting next to him working on their own laptop. They looked up from their screen, not stopping their incessant typing, and sneered.

“Are you talking to yourself again?”

“Absolutely  _ not _ ,” said Seven as he spun in his chair to face his boss. “I’m talking to Novel.”

Vanderwood rolled their eyes and moved them back to their keyboard “She can’t hear you.”

“Whaaaaaat?”

His boss smirked and closed their laptop. “I just got through two firewalls in the time it’s taken you to tear your eyes away from the CCTV. Stop stalking Novel and get back to work.” Tucking their computer under their arm, they stood up and left Seven’s office.

“Are you leaving finally?” he called, leaning back in his chair to look down the hallway Vanderwood had disappeared into.

“You wish,” their voice echoed back. “I’m in your kitchen. I’m going to eat on the patio.”

“It’s raining,” pointed out Seven. “And do I even have real food in my kitchen? I can’t remember.”

“Barely.” The fridge door slammed closed. “And there’s an awning over the patio. I need fresh air. It smells like vomit in this house.”

Seven huffed and crossed his arms. He didn’t think it smelled  _ that  _ bad. It had just been a couple months since he’d cleaned it.

Returning his attention to the CCTV, completely ignoring Vanderwood’s orders, he watched Novel come back out of the kitchen, balancing a bowl filled with lettuce, tomatoes, and croutons on top of all her usual ledgers and papers.

A salad…?

Seven looked down at the bag of chips in his lap. He turned his head slightly to the side and caught the sight of even more crumpled bags of Honey Buddha Chips all across his floor and occupying his desk. Thoughts of leafy vegetables and juicy fruits filled his mind, but the taste was something he could only pretend to remember. He wasn’t sure of the last time he’d eaten anything with real sustenance…

Hopping to his feet and letting the chips on his lap fall onto the desk, he marched to the kitchen. “Barely” meant that there was at least  _ some  _ food in the fridge, right? He wondered what Vanderwood had taken to eat.

Either they took a lot, or Seven’s pantry was just really empty. Nothing but crates of Honey Buddha Chips stood on the shelves. Only a couple hard boiled eggs rolling around and a bag of iceberg lettuce were found in the fridge. In the freezer, he found an onion, but he couldn’t remember why he froze it.

“Well! This seems good enough, right?” He gathered all the ingredients he could find and dropped them onto the island counter in the center of the kitchen.

He peeled the eggs and left the onion to defrost; he broke up the lettuce and crumbled a couple chips. Tossing it all together into a plastic bowl he found underneath the sink, Seven had just made himself a Master Chef-worthy meal of salad with hard boiled eggs and Honey Buddha Chip croutons. It wasn’t impressive by anyone else’s standards except for Seven. Only him.

Happily, he skipped back to his desk with a fork in one hand and his pride and joy of a lunch in the other. He felt so proactive! He was eating healthy! Who knows, maybe he’ll actually do that thing Vanderwood told him to do! (Whatever it was!)

This was the kind of change of pace 707 needed; different food. Forget, what was it Jaehee was harassing him about recently? Right,  _ love.  _ Who needs love when you have good food? Seven minimized the CCTV tab and began his actual work assigned.

“Oh, my god. The food in your fridge must be poisoned and I’m hallucinating. Are you actually  _ working? _ ”

Seven turned around and flashed a smile at Vanderwood who, surprisingly, was not dripping wet from sitting outside in the pouring rain. He raised his bowl of salad in a cheers.

“Wait, what? You’re eating real food too?” Vanderwood braced themselves against the doorway. “Yup. I should go to the hospital. I knew that carrot looked wrong…”

“Nope! You’re not dying! I’m just eating healthy today.” Seven turned back around to continue his work. He felt so fresh! So wholesome! He almost felt as pure as that time he dressed up as a nun.

“Why? Why are you doing this? Have we had a kidnapping in the organization? Are you the real Agent 707?” Vanderwood sounded like they were genuinely losing their mind.

“I can’t let Novel beat me in being healthy,” admitted Seven, shoveling more food into his mouth. “I saw her with a salad on the CCTV. Normally she just eats little snacks and candies. But today she had a  _ salad.  _ I couldn’t let her get away with that!”

“A-and you’re doing your job, too?” Vanderwood ran their gloved hand through their hair. “This is amazing. I’ve never loved Novel more than I have now. She's the only reason you take care of yourself anymore.”

Through a mouth full of lettuce, onions, and fake croutons, Seven grinned fondly. “Of course she is.”

“Of course she is,” echoed the staccato of his keyboard clacks.

_ Of course she is. _

Zen had always secretly admired Seven’s calm attitude in the face of danger. He only ever got upset when he had a lot of work to do in a short amount of time. Otherwise, he kept his calm pretty easily, and even still joked around. Zen always loved that trait. He wished he could embody it. He was an actor! He should be able to easily hide his true feelings and project calmness!

It had been  _ days  _ since the last time they’d heard anything about Nov. His perfect smile was faltering. He was trained to pretend. So why couldn’t he pretend everything was okay? This was his entire life work; showing something other than what he was thinking. When had he become so transparent?

It started showing on his face during rehearsal, in the tired laziness of his movements during the choreography. His mind was as clouded as the gray skies overhead. What were his lines again? The only thing that ran through his mind constantly was  _ Novel is not okay. They say she’s busy, but she must be in trouble. Is Seven sure he fixed the bomb issue? He definitely made it safe again? Is he confident? Oh god, Novel is not okay.  _ What character was he acting out? What production was this again? No, wasn’t he supposed to be on the other side of the stage already?

The directors would frown, and the other actors would whisper, and the music would scratch to a halt and Zen would be brought back to reality. Where was Novel? Not here, not right now. Focus on the present.

“From the top.”

Do it again.

_ Where was she?  _

Nope, wait, that was wrong.

“From the top.”

Do it better this time.

_ Was she safe? _

He stumbled, bumping into an extra twirling past him.

“From the top.”

Do it right this time.

_ She’s not really occupied with work, is she? _

The thought punctured through his mind like a bullet. He stopped mid-step and gasped for breath. Suddenly his head was clear, all the somewhat-right lyrics to half-remembered songs he was supposed to be performing ceasing their numbing chatter.

Ha… the director’s mad again. The people are whispering again. He’s messed up again. He’s sitting out on the sidelines behind the curtain again.

The rest of the actors begin the scene again.

He’s crying about Novel again.

“She really is your reason for everything, isn’t she…?” whispered the music he was supposed to be dancing to.

Through quivering lips he mumbled, “Of course she is.”

“Of course she is,” he read in the eyes of the director who was glaring daggers at him.

_ Of course she is. _

She was, in fact, safe and sound, completely unharmed. Seven was absolutely confident in the work he'd done to solve the bomb troubles. Nov sure was taking her sweet time getting lunch today, though, causing troubles of her own.

Seven had actually went grocery shopping the other day and picked up a shrimp wrap he was excited to dig into. Vanderwood had finally left him alone after he finished all his urgent work. Now he was just back to the drudgery of an intelligence agent’s day-to-day busy work. Disabling malware programs, shutting down trafficking sites… He did this  _ all  _ the time.

And, naturally whenever he felt lonely, he watched the CCTV and had a pretend little lunch with Nov.

“Ah! Finally!” cheered Seven upon seeing her stir in the bedroom doorway. His patience had begun to wear thin, tempted by the scent of seafood he hadn’t tasted in years.

A flash of light brought the hacker’s attention away from Nov stalling in the hallway. Zen and Jumin were in the chat, arguing as usual about cats. Seven smiled excitedly. Usually whenever they fought, Jumin would send pictures of his precious Elly to torture Zen.

“Oh, hey, Novel should be getting these notifications too. I wonder if she’ll…”

He looked back up to the screen to find Nov promptly turning on her heel and returning to the office. It seems she had been waiting for a conversation, and that’s why she took so long in the hall. Seven smiled and joined the chat, waiting expectantly for Nov to join as well.

Movement on the CCTV forced him to tear his eyes away from the heated argument about Elizabeth the 3rd’s coat colour (Zen claimed it was off-white. Of course, this offended Jumin, who insisted it was as pure as freshly fallen snow.) Nov was back in the hallway standing right outside the bedroom door, staring down at her phone.

Seven smiled calmly and looked down at the chat, waiting for the message bar to appear saying Novel had finally returned after five long days of no communication. When nothing came except several continual angered insults from Zen, he looked back up at the screen.

He watched, in horror, as Nov smirked balefully and powered off her phone, tossing it back into the bedroom.

Her arms were empty, free of work, of ledgers and books, of tablets and lists. She had no work to do. She was just ignoring them.

“She hates us…” fell out of Seven’s lips faster than the first tear came. He wiped it away before returning his attention to his actual hacking work. “She is  _ ignoring us. _ ”

He chuckled mirthlessly. “Of course she is.”

“Of course she is,” whispered the soft hum of computers all around him.

_ Of course she is. _

The day of the party came and went. Guests attended, V’s photographs were sold, money was made, charity was helped. Rika was honoured. Yoosung was in tears the entire time.

Nov never showed up.

Jaehee feared illness; Zen worried about a kidnapper; Yoosung once again thought it was his fault; Jumin simply considered Nov to be a flake; Seven was the only one that knew. 

He kept the knowledge suppressed down inside of him for days after the party until, finally, he woke up one morning feeling like he was suffocating from the guilt of keeping the truth away from the RFA. They had promised to be transparent, right? To always share important information to each other. He had to tell them.

It was later in the day when Seven found the time and the courage to summon all the members to the chat. He couldn’t bring himself to tell them to their face or over phone. He didn’t want to hear their tears or gasps or see their disgusted glares pointing daggers at a girl who wasn’t even there anymore.

They had all hastily assembled after Seven’s urgent call, pulling themselves away from their own daily activities to hear him out. He had thought it would be easier to tell it to a full chat, rather than leaving it out there while he was alone for them all to find later. But now, staring at all of their present names at the top bar, his fingers didn’t want to move.

“I’m going to be blunt and right to the point,” Seven typed slowly. The chatroom lurched forward with awaiting ears and rapid hearts. 

“Wait!” came Yoosung’s text before Seven could even begin to type again. “If this is big news, shouldn’t Novel be here to hear it too? Should Jumin call her again?”

The amount of typos the boy managed to include in those two short sentences was impressive. Seven shook his head and huffed out a forced laugh. He watched sadly as all the members sent a chorus of “yeah!”s to the chat.

“No,” sent Seven.

“Why not?” asked Zen, although he feared the answer. They all did. They all knew it was coming, knew it had came, knew it had happened and was a reality. But they all liked to deny it, telling themselves  _ she’s just busy, she needs time to recover, she’s just overwhelmed.  _ They all liked to deny it, but Seven was drowning in the truth.

"She's gone."

Oh. 

"Of course she is," coughed Jaehee through a cracked smile, ducking her head down so no one else in the office could see her cry. 

"Of course she is," said Jumin as he closed his eyes, resting his head in his hands and elbows propped up against his desk. 

"Of course she is," wailed Yoosung, sliding down the wall of the boy's bathroom, letting his phone fall out of his hand and into his lap. 

"Of course she is," grumbled Zen, biting into his cigarette as he looked out across his rooftop to the city that never cared. 

_ Of course she is. _

**Author's Note:**

> the fun just never ends :^) 
> 
> ALSO SHOUTOUT TO ME WHO FINALLY FINISHED JAEHEE'S ROUTE AFTER RESETTING 9 TIMES YEEEE


End file.
